03/14/2016

New Mendoncia Species Honors Hollenberg

A new species of Acanthaceae, Mendoncia hollenbergiae Wassh., has been named in honor of Linda Hollenberg whose career was spent in energetic and passionate care of the plant collections in the U.S. National Herbarium. The new species was discovered after the family treatment for the Flora of Ecuador (Wasshausen, D. C. 2013. Acanthaceae. pp. 1-329. In C. Persson and B. Stahl, eds. Flora of Ecuador. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.) had already been published. The new species was collected in the highly diverse, lowland riverside vegetation of the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador.

Presently, the new species is known only from the holotype and one other more recent collection by Nancy C. Garwood. The new species is morphologically similar to Mendoncia sericea Leonard ex Wassh., a more widespread species in Amazonian Ecuador and possibly Peru. The new species was recently described by Emeritus Research Botanist Dieter Wasshausen in an article published in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (9: 81-88; 2015).